Event synopsis (Listening session on 26th Feb at Hamsadhwani)

This event report is admittedly a month overdue, but better late than never. so here we go.

The event roared to a start with ‘karunai seivai’ in Hamsadhwani raga. ‘O jegadhamba’ in anandabhairavi followed. The first recording had palani Subramania pillai on the mridangam while the latter had palaghat Mani iyer accompanying Mani iyer. The chosen recordings for the day starred only these two mridangam vidwans and Lalgudi Jayaraman as the violinist.

V.Vishnu sporadically intervened in between the excerpts to share a piece of information on Mani iyer and/or anecdotes. One such anecdote was T.N. Rajarathinam Pillai praising Mani iyer’s Bhairavi by quiping ” I play Bhairavi for an hour or so, but you sing the same in fifteen minutes and that stays in the mind forever”. Vishnu also shared a presentation that he prepared with the rasikas, which contained Mani iyer’s contributions to the carnatic world.

Back to the recordings played, next was the navagraha kriti ‘Suryamurthe’ in raga sowrashtram since it was Sunday. A brilliant koluvai unnade in Bhairavi and seetavara in devagandhari took the rasikas on a nostalgic ride.

The highlight was yet to come. A Ragam Thanam Pallavi in Lathangi was the highlight, sweeping the rasikas to a state of ectasy for about 30 minutes. Maye, note and Kansan karunai concluded the event. The event also had a brief speech by Hamsadhwani secretary sri. Sundar in which he remarked that all his family members were Mani iyer fans and that he plans to conduct more of these listening sessions moving forward featuring all the stalwarts of the bygone era.